More Windows Mobile Press Confusion: Maximum PC This Time

Word Mobile Edit ModeLast month I noted the PC World magazine article about Windows Mobile 6 smartphones that incorrectly said that Word Mobile and Excel Mobile on WM6 smartphones could not edit documents. This month iti s Maximum PC magazine’s turn to get it wrong. The Smartphone State of the Union article in the July 2007 issue of Maximum PC includes mini-reviews of many smartphones. Page 44 has a 1/3-page review of the T-Mobile Dash says: You’ll be able to open MS Office documents but not edit them. Given paper publication lag time, this article was probably written way before Windows Mobile 6 became available. Pre-WM6 smartphones did not come with Office Mobile components. So, the review may be speaking of some third party viewing application (but does not clarify this). WM6, however, does provide mobile versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Word and Excel do have edit modes. But, they are just that: Modes. It is not seamless experience like what you find on the desktop or Pocket PC. It is more like old moded vi editor in UNIX. You need to select Edit Mode from the Word or Excel initial menu (the Word menu is shown here). A different menu structure appears at that point and you can edit an existing document.